"Contagion" is a scary movie where the villain is ourselves, the murder weapon our touch. It's a thriller debuting 16 years after "Outbreak," the last major virus extravaganza, only this latest effort has been updated to match today's technological reach and governmental scrutiny, registering with a more subtle sense of fear than whipping around with wild hysterics. It's a Steven Soderbergh film after all, so it's going to maintain some equanimity. However, as reserved and procedural as it is, "Contagion" should have most audience members radically reassessing exactly what they touch during an average day.
Returning home to Minneapolis after a business trip to Hong Kong, Beth (Gwyneth Paltrow) has become deathly ill with mysterious symptoms, leaving husband Thomas (Matt Damon) powerless to help. Assigned to investigate this new virus, Dr. Cheever (Laurence Fishburne) and Dr. Mears (Kate Winslet) seek to find the source of the outbreak, while scientist Ally (Jennifer Ehle, in a delightfully unexpected performance) works to develop a cure. As the virus spreads across the globe, hope is replaced by fear as society is torn apart by desperation and rumor, instigated by Krumweide (Jude Law), a rogue blogger who's been following the progress of the bug since the beginning. As the days pass and the body count rises, the race to find a solution to the plague is gradually surpassed by the need to control an increasingly restless population desperate for answers.
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